Tuesday, July 28, 2015

This was a great week. We got to do 3 companion exchanges which took us to Harrison, Oscoda, and Alma, Michigan. Elder Elmer and I had to reintroduce ourselves to one another after all of it. :) It was great, busy. I love it!

We had one of our investigators commit to be baptized this week. I was with Elder Robison, who is a new missionary in Mt. Pleasant. We taught Gareth Elder. He had some questions about original sin and things pertaining to the Plan of Salvation. We had a great discussion with him about Christ's atonement and how we need to be baptized to be able to live with God again. It all made sense to him and he committed to be baptized!

Also on that day we had one of the coolest lessons of my life. We taught a girl named Emma. We started off the lesson by teaching her how the Spirit is the ultimate teacher and we all shared how we feel the Spirit. As we were teaching her we really focused on priesthood authority and why it's so important. It made so much sense to her and she was getting excited about it! Then when we taught her the First Vision and asked her how she felt, she said, "just like how you guys described it." It was so cool. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes, but didn't know a date. But when we went for a return appointment, she shut us down. She said she wants to learn independently. We were both pretty sad about it but are still going to keep contact, and hopefully still teach her. I know that the Lord has a perfect timetable for her. We can't dictate people's preparedness.

I got to spend a day in Oscoda with Elder Bird. He is a spanish speaker but isn't in a spanish area. We met a lady from Santiago, Chile who has met with the missionaries while there and she only spoke Spanish. It was cool to get to witness and also funny that the people on the other side of the duplex who we had just talked to were amazed. hah.

On Saturday we were walking to go knock on doors when we saw that one of our potential investigators was home so we stopped by and had a lesson with him. He came to church yesterday and he's coming to the ward FHE tonight. What a miracle the Lord blessed us with!

This week was super busy with all kinds of other things and other miracles. I couldn't think that it could get better than this but with the Lord on our side, things can always get better!

My thought for the week comes from Helman 7:9 "But behold, I am consigned that these are my days, and that my soul shall be filled with a sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren." Nephi was wishing he was in the days of Nephi of old, but then he comes to terms and teaches us that he is consigned to his days. Consign means, set apart for a special use or purpose. We are all consigned to our current situation, let us make the most of it and pray to our Heavenly Father that we can know and accomplish our special use or purpose.

Love,

Elder Chalmers

Companion Haircuts: didn't go to bad for me, at least! :)

July 20, 2015

This was yet another busy week in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan! And what added to it is we have bed bugs in our apartment. We had to reschedule almost all of our appointments, so we didn't bring them into anyone's house. If that were to happen, we'd forever be "those missionaries..." hah.

A few highlights from the week.

We did a lot of finding this week and had a lot of success from it. One guy let us right in and he had Joseph Smith-like questions. We had a great lesson with him. He's my age, 20, and we look forward to getting to teach him again.

On Saturday we were out finding all day and were about ready to start making our way home but felt like we needed to keep walking down the street when we finally felt like we should turn down one of them, and it was Main St. which in Mt. Pleasant is Greek Row. We started talking to a few guys who were from Sigma Alpha Epsilon. They were really cool and as we were talking it started to rain a little bit and then the sky got really nasty and they asked us how we were getting home, so we told them walking, and they said, "There are like 20 cars here, you're not walking home." So they gave us a ride back to our place, which was cool. We still had some time so we went to knock on a few doors by our place and at the first one was a guy we had met last week on the other side of town who told us we could meet again, if God was willing. It was miraculous. He was an interesting fellow and we talked for about 45 min. We gave him a Book of Mormon and hopefully he takes the opportunity to read it.

We went to Robaire's bakery for donuts three days in a row this week. We were addicted after the first ones! :)

I got to go on trade-offs to Midland this week. It was the best. We had breakfast with Bro. Jones, got to PC at the Tridge for a few hours, saw Ben Guffy while we were there and had a lesson with the Shocknesse family. John gave me even more info about how we had passed him at the Tridge on two previous days and occasions to when we finally met. I love them so much! We also got to see Curt and Patti. It was fun getting to harass Curt and get it right back. :) I love Midland.

We have been keeping busy and seeing miracles all the time. It doesn't get better than this! :)

My thought for this week comes from Helaman 6. At the end of the chapter it speaks of the Gadianton Robbers and how the Lamanites destroy them from among them, while the Nephites build them up and they eventually take over. That is just how our sins and the natural man within us works. We either destroy them/it and be like a Lamanite or we try to cover our sins, gratify our pride and it completely consumes us. BE A LAMANITE! DESTROY SIN!

Also, the talk "Becoming Men and Women of Integrity" by Tad R. Callister is awesome!

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

This week was busy! We went on a few companion exchanges, had a meeting in Lansing, and it all just flew by!

Monday: Today Elder Elmer and I explored Mt. Pleasant. We went to a few stores and got to know the town a little better. It was fun. We had dinner with the May family. He is our ward mission leader, and he is the man. He is super funny and on top of things.

Tuesday: Today we had Mission Leadership Council in Lansing. It was a great experience. We all gave reports as to how our zone is doing then discussed some of the things happening in the mission, which was pretty interesting to hear all of the different opinions. My favorite part was when the elders had a pow-wow with Pres. Jacobsen and the sisters went with Sister Jacobsen. We read through Ether 12 and discussed it. It was so powerful. A cool thing I learned is that as it says in Ether 12:27, the closer we get to Christ the more weaknesses we realize we have so when we look at the whole scripture we can realize that is a blessing because we can have all those weaknesses become strengths. It was great getting to talk with Elder Hess. I love him. Afterwards we drove back to MT.P and had a lesson with a new investigator named Cody, and his fiance, Beth. We were really able to help them recognize the Spirit. It went really well. We had to drive out to Caro and stay the night there, so we can go to district meeting with them.

Wednesday: We had district meeting in Caro, my MTC comp is there, so that was fun. Elder Adams made all of us lunch after district meeting, which was really cool. I came back to MT. P with Elder Boyd, who is serving in Bad Axe (the thumb). He is super cool. He's pretty new and went to 2 years of BYU before his mission. We had some great experiences while knocking. We met his black guy named Paul. We were talking to him, and he said, "You guys are serious about this, I mean you are serious! You make me want to get more serious about the gospel!" hah. We also went out to dinner with a YSA, Justin Bates, which was really sweet. We found a lot of cool people.

Thursday: Today we had to drive way out to Bad Axe to trade back then Elder Elmer and I had to hurry to Midland so we could meet with the Stake Presidency to discuss missionary work. The council has like 5 people from the Midland 2nd ward, so it was good to see some familiar faces. :) We then drove to Saginaw and traded off with them. I got to be in Saginaw with Elder Giar (he knows Kristi Fry's brother, Bobby Dean, he's in his ward).

Friday: Saginaw was super sweet. We got to do some finding in the super ghetto part. We met a guy named Hadee, and his "brother". They told us we were in the hood so I asked them what that meant and they said, "When it gets dark, you wear a white shirt..." It made no sense..hah. We did quite a few prayer circles with people as well. ha. It was a blast. We found a lot of really cool people.

Saturday: Today we did a lot of finding. We basically walked across town to the street we wanted to knock and it took like 4 hours because we talked to everyone we could on the way. We met some super cool people.

Sunday: Today church was really great. There were some great talks and we got to have lunch with the Harrast family. He is a triathlete and did the half ironman in ST. G this year! They are super cool. We did call-ins the rest of the day.

Today we found a super awesome bakery in town and they make the best donuts, so that was a score. :) Man is it gangbusters!

My spiritual thought for the week comes from Helaman 5:6-7

6 Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

7 Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.

This really shows us the power of a name, and as I thought more about this, I thought about how when each of us is baptized we take another name upon us, Christ's name. We need to always REMEMBER him, and keep the covenant that we have made.

I love Michigan and being a missionary here. It's the place to be!

Love,

Elder Chalmers

Wade Bringhurst look alike

The best donuts in Mt. Pleasant

June 6, 2015

This was a crazy first week in Mt. Pleasant! We have so much to do and so little time to do it, but it has been a blast and we've seen so many miracles! There are a lot of new responsibilities but my companion, Elder Elmer, is really helping me to learn them and I'm looking forward to the future! We don't have any investigators, since there haven't really been any elders here for about a month so we had the privilege to do a lot of finding activities and saw so many miracles!

Our first day in Mt. P. Elder Elmer got some shopping done and then after our P-Day was over we had to do a lot of planning to figure out things in our area and who is even in the zone here.

Our week consisted of a ton of planning and organizing and then finding people to teach. It has just been a blur (thank goodness for a journal...).

Some really cool finding miracles from this week:

We did some companion exchanges with the missionaries in West Branch, so I was with Elder Isaacson in Mt. Pleasant. He also served in Kalkaska so that was a topic of great discussion. We had some awesome things happen. We got to this one duplex and we were talking to this lady when her neighbor came out and started talking to her so we started talking to both of them. The neighbor lady said it was cool how we came because she has had a lot of people telling her she should go back to church lately and we talked about eternal families and our purpose here and she really liked it, and we are going to teach her! Later that night we were finding some more and were walking up to a house when someone yelled, "Stephen!" at us. So we turned and a lady was waving us over. She thought I was Elder Stevenson who used to serve here so we were talking to her and she was super friendly and wants to meet with us. After we left, I was on the phone with some missionaries and she came running out of the house with money, saying, "I forgot a donation!" ha. She tried to give us the money but we wouldn't take it so she said she will just make us a sandwich when we come to teach her. hah. MIRACLE! Then a few doors later, I had to really use the bathroom so we were speed walking it back to our truck and the house before we got to the car had some people out front, so we just walked up and I introduced us and the first thing I said was, "We've been out and about could I use your restroom?" She told us how it's really messy but that her husband could take us in. So that was a miracle, but then her husband was showing us all of his turtles. He has over 20 turtles and a huge snapping turtle, so we were talking about turtles and then talking about eternal families. He said he doesn't believe in "til death do you part" so we are going to teach him! MIRACLE! We were really diligent about following the Spirit and even when we did, and what we were led to do didn't exactly work out, we knew, learned, and witnessed, that it's all about being in the right place at the right time with the right message. And we definitely were. :)

On the 4th of July, Elder Elmer and I saw a ton of miracles. We were finding and met some really cool people. We have been focusing on talking about eternal families and temples with people. Our focus right now is to find a family that is prepared for the gospel and baptism so we've been praying for that every day and teaching to that need. We met a lady who knew a little bit about the church and had a great conversation with her and she is interested! We felt like we should walk on the other side of the street, and that was when we met her. :)

We watched fireworks for a few minutes from our porch, so that was nice.

I also saved a turtle who was in the middle of an intersection, so I feel like it makes up for my dislike of animals. :)

We saw so many miracles, and it was a wonderful week. The ward is great, and we are excited to help them fulfill their missionary responsibilities!

Never feel like when you follow the Spirit you are wrong, you never know exactly what the alternative outcome would have brought, but you can rest assured that because you followed you are and will be blessed for it!